The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has released the 2012 Update to the VTA Bicycle Technical Guidelines (BTG) for public comment. The BTG was first adopted by VTA in 1999, subsequently revised in December 2007, and is a set of standards and best practices to be used as a resource by both roadway and bikeway planners and designers. They are intended to help agencies provide optimal bicycle accommodations and ensure that bicycle planning and roadway planning remain consistent county-wide.

The Bicycle Technical Guidelines complement the Countywide Bicycle Plan and VTA's Bicycle Expenditure Program (BEP) first adopted in 2000 by the Board of Directors as the funding mechanism for county-wide bicycle projects. The BEP is the bicycle element of the Valley Transportation Plan, Santa Clara County's Long Range Transportation Plan. It allocates approximately $165M to fund 80 bicycle projects for the period 2010-2035.

The draft BTG document is available at www.vta.org/bike_information/bicycle_technical_guidelines.html.

Comments should be submitted no later than September 15, 2012 via email to Bikes@vta.org or via regular mail to 3331 N. First Street, San Jose, CA, 95134-1906, Attn: CMA Planning, Building B-2.

For information, contact VTA Customer Service at (408) 321-2300, TTY (408) 321-2330. You can also log onto www.vta.org and sign-up to receive VTA email updates. Find us on Facebook under "SCVTA", Twitter under "SantaClaraVTA", and YouTube at www.youtube.com/scvta.